Wisconsin Public Television

Transcript: In Wisconsin

Original Air Date: October 12, 2006

Patty Loew:

Hello, and welcome to "In Wisconsin." I'm Patty Loew This week find out why the fate of this school hangs in the balance waiting on a tough choice voters will have to make in November. Discover how the shared language of art is bringing east and west together. Meet a Neenah doctor whose medical skills give new life to children half a world away. Just to see the smile on a child's face. All that's very, very rewarding. And do you believe that politicians keep their promises? Art Hackett follows up on some pledges made in past political races here in Wisconsin.

The fire is getting hot. That's how one state lawmaker describes how some Wisconsin schools are being affected by school funding formulas. Green Lake County is home to one of the school districts currently on the hot seat. The Markesan School District will go to the voters in a referendum on election day asking for more money. If the vote fails, Markesan schools may have to turn off the lights and lock the doors for good. In this week's "What's the Plan" report, Frederica Freyberg asks the candidates for governor what they would do to put out this kind of school funding fire.

Freyberg:

It's the noon hour at a local diner in Markesan, and opinion at the lunch counter is mixed on whether to vote to give the schools here more money.

How will you vote on the referendum?

Forest Sullivan:

Well, to be honest I plan on voting no.

Freyberg:

Forest Sullivan said his own kids went to Markesan schools. But he says he doesn't want to part with more of his tax dollars. At another table, Peter Grams said he's voting for the $3 million referendum. He owns the local hardware store on Main Street, and says he fears if the school goes away, the town goes with it.

Peter Grams:

Because if the school doesn't stay as an attraction for new families moving to town, then my business may die, so to speak, as the town does.

Freyberg:

The Markesan schools are in very real danger of going under.

Susan Alexander:

We have enough money to finish this school year and to run one more school year, which is the 2007-2008 school year. After that, then the district will have to dissolve.

Freyberg:

Markesan finds itself strapped for cash, and unable to keep the books in the black under Wisconsin's school funding formula. One reason is because pricey waterfront homes on Green Lake are part of the Markesan district. That property wealth means the schools get less state money under the formula that gives high property value districts a smaller piece of the state funding pie. Under the same formula, Markesan schools also get less state money because enrollment is down. Fewer large families live on the farms that populate the rural district than they had in years past. The embattled superintendent of Markesan schools also says her district gets hammered, because when school spending caps were set into law in 1993, they were based on what individual school districts spent that year.

Alexander:

Those districts that were fiscally very conservative in 1993 are the ones that are going to be out of business first.

Freyberg:

The superintendent says Markesan schools have made $1.5 million in cuts including teachers, administrators, and counselors. The high school already cut Beginning German class, but may have to cut German altogether, offering only one foreign language.

How lean is your district?

Alexander:

We're bones.

Freyberg:

Alexander said her costs for everything from busing to electricity are going up, but her revenue isn't keeping pace. She said underspending caps, her budget can't even rise to the rate of inflation. That's created a budget hole that's grown every year and will reach minus $1.3 million by 2009. That is, unless voters this year come to the rescue.

Gary Hohenstern:

I hope it goes through.

Freyberg:

Why?

Hohenstern:

Because I'd like my kids to stay here and not be shipped who knows where.

Student:

We do want our school to survive. We want to have a school in Markesan.

Freyberg:

We asked the candidates running for governor, "What's the Plan?" for funding schools in Wisconsin. Republican candidate for governor Mark Green says his initial fix to what he calls a broken school funding formula would be something he calls the 70 cent plan.

Mark Green:

There was an interesting study done, and it showed that school performance and school scores, ACTs, SAT's, a great correlation was to the percentage of education funding that actually reaches the classroom. In Wisconsin, depending upon whose numbers you use, we're at about 66 cents on the dollar, a little bit more. If we would commit ourselves to going to 70, that would be over $300 million getting into the classroom more this year under the budget.

Freyberg:

Green says too much school funding that could be in the classroom is being eaten up by administrative costs. He would cut those. He would also establish a performance-based pay system for teachers, and expand the Milwaukee School Choice program.

Democratic incumbent candidate for governor Jim Doyle has several specifics to help fix problems with the school funding formula that hurt districts like Markesan.

Jim Doyle:

This may sound pretty technical, but it does make a big difference to these districts, which is to allow them to average their school population over five years instead of three years. What it means is that if there is a long-term decline, it's a much more gradual loss of state funding. And if it's sort of a short term, that some school districts find themselves, for some reason if you're a small enough school district, you know, and four or five or six big families move out of the district you have a drop, you don't have that sort of sharp drop that occurs.

Freyberg:

Doyle says he has already helped districts by increasing money for transportation, like school buses, and by having the state pick up more of the costs for special education. He also touts his move to restore two-thirds state funding to schools.

Green party candidate for governor, Nelson Eisman, said his plan for universal healthcare would help districts out a lot.

Nelson Eisman:

If we have universal healthcare, that's taking the biggest burden off the school districts. The reason for the cap in school revenues is because healthcare was growing so fast that the school districts needed so much money to give the teachers any kind of raise, and so the qualified economic offer is a way to say to the teachers we'd like to give you a raise, but. Okay, we take that out of it. Everyone has universal healthcare, big sigh of relief.

Freyberg:

Eisman also promotes consolidating districts and establishing regional DPI administrators across the state to help local districts cut administrative costs and facilitate education planning. We asked school financing expert and UW-Whitewater professor Bambi Statz to examine the positions for candidates for governor.

Mark Green:

But I can promise you, that I understand the problem.

Freyberg:

Mark Green's idea to require 70 cents on the dollar to be used for classroom instruction.

Statz:

If we want the state to dictate how much should be spent on certain things in the budget, then perhaps we don't need local school boards and maybe even local school districts.

Freyberg:

Statz calls the Green plan for more classroom spending overly simplistic. And says if he wants that, there would have to be more flexibility in school district spending caps.

On Jim Doyle's proposal to change the school formula to allow averaging enrollment over five years.

Statz:

Right now, the revenue cap averages enrollment over three years, so it helps to mitigate. It doesn't mitigate declines, but it helps.

Freyberg:

Statz agrees with Eisman that healthcare costs have been a frustration for school districts, but she really disagrees with Eisman's idea for regional state school administrators.

Statz:

I think citizens in the state take it very seriously when they elect people at all levels, certainly local officials. So, when they elect school board members who have the responsibility to then hire administrators, for instance, I think they trust those people to hire people who will come in, be part of the community, have a vested interest in the community, and promote what's best for children and taxpayers within their communities. And so, to suggest that we could do that on a regional or state basis, I think might not work so well.

Freyberg:

While policy makers and experts debate what might work better when it comes to funding Wisconsin's schools, districts like Markesan hang in the balance banking on local taxpayers to bail them out.

Loew:

The candidate who wins November's election will have help if he wants to adjust the school aid formula. There are two panels currently developing proposals to change the way Wisconsin pays for schools. Art Hackett reports on some of the ideas the panels have come up with on next week's "In Wisconsin."

With conflict heating up around the world, now more than ever it seems essential that we try to understand different cultures. Producer Liz Koerner spent time last fall with a group that's seeking an exchange of ideas not via the political stage, but through art.

Liz Koerner:

On a warm afternoon in late autumn, Toni Rajer welcomes house guests from Japan. Hiroko and Masao Yamauchi are visiting artists. They're staying with Rajer and his wife, Chris style. To prepare for the visit, they made an effort to learn each other's language. The communication is still a challenge.

Toni Rajer:

Even though we can't, you know, speak-- understand totally, I think through the gestures and through the dictionary, looking up key words, it really helps.

Koerner:

Hiroko is a cligrafer. She made a gift for her host inspired by her first visit to Wisconsin five years ago.

Man:

What is it? Deer. Oh. And we have many deer here in Wisconsin.

Koerner:

Masao is a ceramic artist. His gift is a set of hand-made porcelain bowls. Masao brought another gift. Traditional Japanese music performed on his antique bamboo flute. The Yamauchis are here with a group of artists from Japan. They're taking part in a cultural exchange. The showcase for the exchange is a joint art exhibit called "two cultures, one spirit." Sixty artists participated, half from Wisconsin, half from Japan. Their artwork was displayed in five cities around the state. The exchange is sponsored by the group Wisconsin Painters and Sculptors and Wisconsin Artists in All Media. Pat Holt proposed the idea in 2000 and recalls the local artists' response.

Pat Holt:

There was so much anxiety and so much fear that what if our art isn't the same? What if we offend? What if, what if, what if?

Koerner:

One of the what ifs was quickly dispeled when the artwork was put up for display.

Holt:

Sometimes when you look at the show, you can't tell if it was a Wisconsin artist or a Japanese artist who did it, because we've been as much influenced by their culture as they have been by ours.

Koerner:

As part of the week-long cultural exchange, artists from both countries showed the public how they do what they do. From calligraphy and collaboration, to printing. And pottery, and proved at every gathering that the cultural exchange was working.

Man:

So different from the usual way you do it in class.

Koerner:

The audience, the visiting artists, and home hosts, everyone had an opportunity to learn about the others' culture. For many this knowledge has far-reaching potential.

Holt:

There is so much more than what we have in our back yards, and so it's important to reach out.

Loew:

That group of Wisconsin artists plans to continue the cultural exchange in the fall of 2008 with a visit to Japan. Our next report also features a Wisconsin citizen who's reaching out to the international community. Dr. Todd Van Ye works with a Christian missionary group to set up a clinic once a year in the republican of Congo. The Neenah plastic surgeon helps people that have been marked by the horrors of that country's war. A note, this report contains images that you may find graphic or disturbing.

Andy Soth:

In an operating room in the central African nation of Congo, a young boy is prepped for surgery, plastic surgery.

Todd Van Ye:

Well, there is a lot more to plastic surgery than just how Hollywood would portray it.

Soth:

The doctor is Todd Van Ye of Neenah, Wisconsin.

Van Ye:

This is part of why I'm a plastic surgeon.

Soth:

Van Ye travels to Africa each year to fix cleft lips and pallets, to treat tumors and burn wounds.

Van Ye:

People are ostracized, so to fix that is abnormal or mall formed is a tremendous improvement to the patient. They're accepted.

Soth:

Van Ye practices at a hospital in Goma on the border with Rwanda.

Van Ye:

The environment over in this part of eastern Congo really is not safe.

Soth:

Some of the risk comes from the natural world, like the volcano that destroyed the clinic Van Ye's first year there.

Van Ye:

The lava flow went right down the middle of the city.

Soth:

Van Ye fled Goma by boat.

Van Ye:

The wildest adventure that you could possibly imagine.

Soth:

But a greater risk for the people of Goma comes from their fellow Congolese.

Van Ye:

There is really anarchy.

Soth:

Gunshots to the face are a common method warring militias use to intimidate rivals.

Van Ye:

The suffering will go on and on and on really for their lifetime.

Soth:

Suffering Van Ye relieves.

Van Ye:

If I go over there and I have made one person's life a little bit better, then it's worth the trip.

Soth:

And by training local health care providers, Van Ye can be certain life will be better for the people of Goma.

Van Ye:

It's such a marvelous feeling to know that we have raised the standard of health care and that they're able to do it themselves. Just to see the smile on a child's face, all that's just very, very rewarding.

Loew:

The democrat Republic of Congo will hold a presidential election in about two weeks, an event many hope will bring new stability and an end to the violence in the region.

Graphic:

It's estimated that about 40% of Congo's warring militias are made up of children.

Source: Amnesty International.

Two years after the Congolese government launched a program to free child soldiers, more than 11,000 children are still in armed groups - or are unaccounted for.

Loew:

Our final report this week takes us full circle back to the world of Wisconsin politics. With a hot campaign for governor underway, we're hip deep in campaign promises. Some candidates make a lot. Some avoid specifics. But every candidate eventually sticks his or her neck out with pledges to keep once elected. But do they keep them? Reporter Art Hackett goes back in time to check up on promises of the past.

Jim Doyle:

Hello. I'm Jim Doyle, candidate for governor.

Art Hackett:

As a benchmark, we started with candidate statements Jim Doyle.

Mark Green:

Hi. I'm Mark Green.

Hackett:

And Mark green made in the most recent runs for office. Candidate statements are five-minute time slots Wisconsin public television makes available to all candidates on the ballot in major state and federal elections. Mark Green was in this studio when he last ran for congress in 2004. Jim Doyle was here when he first ran for governor in 2002. We don't have a candidate statement for Nelson Eisman because this is his first run for office. As Doyle and Green campaign against each other in 2006, we looked at their past campaign statements in search of if elected I will promises.

Jim Doyle:

As governor, I will fight to make health care more affordable and accessible.

Hackett:

Let's take those promises in order.

Doyle:

My health security plan focuses on working to hold down the increasing costs of health insurance premiums and prescription drug costs.

Hackett:

During the past four years participants in Badgercare and Family Medical Assistance, two programs to provide low income health insurance, have increased. As for insurance costs, according to the Wisconsin Division of Health and Family Services, the costs remain steady between 2003 and 2005, but rose in 2006. Prescription drug costs for some people are down. A Doyle initiative shifted state employees to a prescription drug management plan. The Wisconsin Department of Employee Trust Funds, which manages the program estimates the plan will have saved $130 million this year.

Doyle:

Reducing the number of uninsured.

Hackett:

According to DHFS, the number of people listed as currently uninsured increased from 6% to 7% between 2003 and 2004, the most recent report available.

Doyle:

And expanding long-term care opportunities for seniors.

Hackett:

As for expanding long-term care, Doyle proposed and signed legislation expanding the state's family care program. That program has nearly eliminated waiting lists for at-home care for the elderly and disabled in five counties. The waiting list outside the family care counties has grown over the last four years, but Doyle signed a further expansion of family care in June which should start to reduce the waiting lists in those counties as well.

Doyle:

As governor, I will present a balanced budget.

Hackett:

The budget Doyle submitted were balanced in the sense that there was a surplus at the end of each budget cycle. By law there has to be. But Wisconsin has long struggled with a structural deficit. The structural deficit counts spending that has to be paid off in future budget cycles. That deficit has been around $1.5 billion going back into Tommy Thompson's administration. Jim Doyle's first budget in 2003 had a structural deficit of $2.8 billion, partly due to the carry over of the deficit from the previous administration's budget. Doyle's second budget cut that back to $1.5 billion. The structural deficit of the upcoming cycle is projected to remain at that level.

Doyle:

One that is balanced the old-fashioned way with real numbers, not with tricks or gimmicks.

Hackett:

As for no tricks or gimmicks, Doyle brought the budget into what is considered balance with transfers from segregated funds, the transportation fund and energy conservation fund. The Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance calls those transfers gimmicks.

Green:

Just last February -- -

Hackett:

As a congressional incumbent, Mark Green's candidate statement from 2004 was largely in the past tense. Green's statement concentrated on what he had done or was in the process of doing versus what he would do.

Green:

I believe that terrorism represents the most significant threat to our national security, and we need every day to take every opportunity we can to keep America safe. Among other things, that means finishing the job in Iraq and Afghanistan. I visited these countries myself, and I'll be the first to admit they have some tough challenges ahead, but I also know that we've made great progress.

Hackett:

Project Vote Smart, a nonpartisan accountability group, reports green voted for all defense and Homeland Security appropriations bills the group tracked. Whether there's been progress in Iraq is another matter. The country has held elections, but monthly U.S. troop losses have increased over the last two years.

Green:

I'm committed to helping Wisconsin employers grow and compete. I'm committed to lowering the tax burden on our hard-working Wisconsin families.

Hackett:

Project Vote Smart reports Green is supporting a number of tax cuts during the past two years, among them cuts in the Estate Tax and the Alternative Minimum Tax.

Green:

And I'm committed to creating good paying jobs for all of our workers.

Hackett:

According to the Wisconsin Department of Work Force Development, employment in Green's district did go up during the last three years by 1%. We also checked green's congressional campaign Web site which still referenced his 2002 campaign. On it we found this letter behind a link called "term limits." It dates back to 1998, the year green first ran for congress. In it he promises to serve only six years. When I leaves office for the governor's chair or the private sector, Congressman Green will have served eight years.

Loew:

You can log on to Wisconsinvote.org to see what promises were made by Doyle and Green in this year's candidate statements. You can also watch the statement of green party candidate Nelson Eisman. Candidates in another hot race, the U.S. Senate race will appear tomorrow on "Here and Now." This week green party candidate Rae Vogler and independent candidate Ben Glatzel are featured. "Here and Now" airs Friday night at 7:00. That's our program for this week. Thanks for joining us. For "In Wisconsin," I'm Patty Loew. See you next time.